An unfair Australia: mapping youth unemployment hotspots

Using Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data, Table 1 shows the 20 regions with the highest youth unemployment rates in the year to January 2018. The postcodes for each region are listed in Table 4.

Some regional hotspots have youth unemployment rates well above 20 per cent. In the case of the Queensland Outback region, the rate is 67.1 per cent – more than two-thirds of the young people in the labour force. Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven (NSW), Wide Bay (Qld), Tasmania South East and Murray (NSW) experienced rates between 20 and 30 per cent.

In these 20 hotspots, above-average youth unemployment rates have tended to persist over time. Of the 20 regions with the highest rates, 17 already had youth unemployment rates above the national average in 2016 and 19 had higher levels in 2018 than in 2016.